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What view are we to take of that which is opposed to Motion,
whether it be Stability or Rest? Are we to consider it as a
distinct genus, or to refer it to one of the genera already
established? We should, no doubt, be well advised to assign
Stability to the Intellectual, and to look in the lower sphere
for Rest alone.
First, then, we have to discover the precise nature of this Rest.
If it presents itself as identical with Stability, we have no
right to expect to find it in the sphere where nothing is stable
and the apparently stable has merely a less strenuous motion.
Suppose the contrary: we decide that Rest is different from
Stability inasmuch as Stability belongs to the utterly immobile,
Rest to the stationary which, though of a nature to move, does
not move. Now, if Rest means coming to rest, it must be regarded
as a motion which has not yet ceased but still continues; but if
we suppose it to be incompatible with Motion, we have first to
ask whether there is in the Sensible world anything without
motion.
Yet nothing can experience every type of motion; certain motions
must be ruled out in order that we may speak of the moving object
as existing: may we not, then, say of that which has no
locomotion and is at rest as far as pertains to that specific
type of motion, simply that it does not move?
Rest, accordingly, is the negation of Motion: in other words, it
has no generic status. It is in fact related only to one type of
motion, namely, locomotion; it is therefore the negation of this
motion that is meant.
But, it may be asked, why not regard Motion as the negation of
Stability? We reply that Motion does not appear alone; it is
accompanied by a force which actualizes its object, forcing it
on, as it were, giving it a thousand forms and destroying them
all: Rest, on the contrary, comports nothing but the object
itself, and signifies merely that the object has no motion.
Why, then, did we not in discussing the Intellectual realm assert
that Stability was the negation of Motion? Because it is not
indeed possible to consider Stability as an annulling of Motion,
for when Motion ceases Stability does not exist, but requires for
its own existence the simultaneous existence of Motion; and what
is of a nature to move is not stationary because Stability of
that realm is motionless, but because Stability has taken hold of
it; in so far as it has Motion, it will never cease to move:
thus, it is stationary under the influence of Stability, and
moves under the influence of Motion. In the lower realm, too, a
thing moves in virtue of Motion, but its Rest is caused by a
deficiency; it has been deprived of its due motion.
What we have to observe is the essential character of this
Sensible counterpart of Stability.
Consider sickness and health. The convalescent moves in the sense
that he passes from sickness to health. What species of rest are
we to oppose to this convalescence? If we oppose the condition
from which he departs, that condition is sickness, not Stability;
if that into which he passes, it is health, again not the same as
Stability.
It may be declared that health or sickness is indeed some form of
Stability: we are to suppose, then, that Stability is the genus
of which health and sickness are species; which is absurd.
Stability may, again, be regarded as an attribute of health:
according to this view, health will not be health before
possessing Stability.
These questions may however be left to the judgement of the
individual.
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